Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Tree

Last year I had great difficulty working up much holiday spirit. I had gone back to work and was finishing up the third month of working in Hell for Satan's chiropractor (before moving on to my current and far closer to heaven type of employment arrangement). I just couldn't make myself care. I did no baking. I can't remember if I sent any cards. I think I might have skipped it based on how many I have left to choose from this year. We put a tree up and it sat in the living room bereft of any adornment for two weeks before my family finally gave up on me ever decorating it. See they are accustomed to relying on me to cultivate the holiday spirit while they just soak it up. Well, last year I said a bit fat "Bah Humbug" to that whole routine.

This year I've done better. So have the other members of the household. This weekend there was a family trip to find a Christmas tree during which there was no groaning and moaning about the process. The first saw your own tree place, where we've gone for years, seemed to have a truly crappy selection of trees for high prices. We left there and headed to a new place with vastly better trees at far better prices. A Charlie Brown type tree for $60 or a nice lush evergreen for $30. That's a no-brainer.

It was rather late till we got back but the tree was erected Saturday night. Of course this required hauling out the vacuum cleaner because we have to rearrange furniture to make space for the tree. And really when you do that it's almost like an early Christmas to see what sorts of exciting things have accumulated under the love seat. Oooh, look! I got 4392 wrappers for cough drops! Hey, I got a pen that leaked all over the carpet! Wow! I always wanted a fossilized, half-eaten...uh...granola bar...or hot-dog....or something... So the tree stood bare for the night.

Sunday the decorations were dug out of storage and put around the house. Half the colored tree lights we had were dead beyond resuscitation. I tried putting up the few working ones we had left but they were entirely too sparse. If it's possible to have Charlie Brown lights on a good looking tree I think I achieved that. I just had no interest in heading out to buy new ones so we threw on a sufficient number of white lights. (Forgive me the white lights, Suldog.) I got all the other decorations out while Mr. Lime and Isaac wound the few working colored lights on the banister. By then some dinner was needed. So the tree stands semi-clothed in white lights and leaning somewhat oddly (thanks to the kid at the tree farm who drilled it crooked). I'm not feeling terribly motivated to finish it this evening. It won't be ignored for two weeks like last year but in its own way the half dressed, leaning tree sort of conjures a certain holiday spirit...rather like the one guest at the party who has had a bit much to drink.

(The picture is kind of crappy since it's off my phone and really doesn't do justice to the angle of leaning.)

15 comments:

We got our tree this weekend, as well. We settled, a few years ago, on getting our tree on the Third Sunday of Advent ('cuz when we waited much longer than that, all we got to pick from was the Charlie Brown trees, albeit that the lots were ready to part with 'em pretty cheap). But at present (and for the next week or so) it sits unadorned in front of our living-room window, in a sort-of 'best we can do of Advent' angle. . .

(And listen, don't tell Suldog, but all we have are the white lights, too. . .)

I count myself EXTREMELY fortunate that Nature Girl did the majority of the 'decking of the halls' this year.

I'm beginning to understand my grandparents better when I think back to the visits to their house around the holidays and the only decoration was a ceramic table top Christmas tree with a dozen lights of which only 10 lit up.

Hahahaha! This has really gotten me laughing at how similar it is at my house, except our tree is artificial, due to the extreme difficulty of finding a real one here. We too have to rearrange furniture for our tree to fit...and this year half our lights were burned out as well. I did have to go out and get new ones because we only had the ones for the tree, but I still haven't put them on, so the tree stands undecorated, with only half its lights. And it's crooked too since the cat knocked it over... :D